The Sports-India Community

Hi,

We are a group of junior tennis players in India who are fed up with the amount of age fraud in AITA tournaments. Help us fix the system!

We laugh when we read this forum and see comments like "14-year old XX has great potential" or "16-year old YY has to be nurtured". We know the truth about these players that you refer to. We play them often and have played them for years. We know that in their real age group, they will be very ordinary. It makes us sad and angry. Hearing people say that "when you are 19, it will stop to matter" does not help. By the time you reach quarter finals, you are guaranteed to have an "uncle" on the other side of the net firing aces at you. That's when it stops being funny.

Having these age cheaters is harmful in many ways. One, it discourages legitimate talent. There is fantastic junior talent in India. Two, it does not allow us to be in the top few of the age categories, which hurts our resumes and robs us of opportunities. Three, it shows India in a bad light in international competitions. Fourth, a rotten system will not produce stars except by accident.

We have specific names to call out. Clearly, we have no evidence against them, but we have indicators that someone in media (etc.) can use to start investigating for an expose. Take for example, the "Road to Wimbledon" series. A majority of the players that we have sent to England for this are age cheaters, especially in the last two years. By pretending to have an "age fraud policy" in place, AITA is covering itself but doing NOTHING. Today, more than half of the top 15 players in Boys Under-14 are older than claimed, some much much older.

What can we do? Do the people reading this have access to media people who may want to take this up? How do we amplify the message and make it viral? Your advice would be very valuable to us.

Please follow @HateAgeFraud on Twitter, and retweet our stuff. It's a new account.

Thank you!

-- Players.Against.Age.Fraud AT gmail DOT com
-- @HateAgeFraud (Twitter)

Very shocking to see that age cheating still exists in an urban sport like Tennis, although not as surprising! This is an utter shame to our system. I am glad you took the first step in starting a twitter campaign. Our ministers and PM seem to take action to some of the legitimate grievances. If none of them respond, at least it will create awareness among masses and put these so called champions to shame.

- Varma

I hope you succeed in your fight against age fraud. Best of luck.

Dear Hate_Age_Fraud,

Each one of us hate it too. A lot of us do not watch the junior players ourselves. So, we do not know whether they are overage or not. But, we know that it is a big problem in many Indian sports. I would suggest that you contact the editors of newspapers with specific articles. Some may publish them. Then, this forum can amplify that. We can take those articles and post in our social media feeds etc. Maybe some of your friends who do not play and cannot be traced back to you can hold banners saying, "AITA Stop Age Fraud" during Davis Cup or other Futures matches that have audience and reporters. I am sorry we, in this forum, cannot help a lot.

Thanks for posting here.

Best Wishes,
Prasen9

The best way is to approach some journalists who can carry the story in the papers. Kamesh Srinivasan is one of the best ones reporting on Tennis in Hindu. In fact as I see he is the only one reporting on futures and challenger level events and juniors in newspapers ( apart from this forum of course. ). The other one I remember is Sukhwant Basra who I think writes for Hindustan Times and always has an axe to grind against tennis establishment.

sameerph wrote:The best way is to approach some journalists who can carry the story in the papers. Kamesh Srinivasan is one of the best ones reporting on Tennis in Hindu. In fact as I see he is the only one reporting on futures and challenger level events and juniors in newspapers ( apart from this forum of course. ). The other one I remember is Sukhwant Basra who I think writes for Hindustan Times and always has an axe to grind against tennis establishment.

For some of them, this forum might be doubling up as homework cheater too

- Varma

Thank you all for the suggestions! We will try to target the journalists that you have recommended. Will keep you posted, periodically.

Varma> Very shocking to see that age cheating still exists in an urban sport like Tennis, although not as surprising!

We see that most of the age cheaters in Tennis have a rural background, even though they may be currently training in a city.

This guy is a well-known example: http://www.indiatimes.com/sports/meet-1 ... 71397.html

He is in 10th grade but playing Under-14!

Good that you starting this, h.a.f... This has been a long-time problem. We generally figure things out once we start seeing the pictures of the players whether their age seems legit. My understanding was also that it is more of a problem in certain parts of India than others.

As for newspapers, the reporters may be reluctant to call names out specifically, as there is probably no proof on the age. On the others hand, if there is proof on which school grade they are studying in, that could be publishable.

Jay

hate.age.fraud wrote:This guy is a well-known example: http://www.indiatimes.com/sports/meet-1 ... 71397.html

He is in 10th grade but playing Under-14!

Technically, this is possible. A player can play 14-and-under until their 15th birthday. My son, for example, turns 15 in November and he is in 9th grade now. He is going to be in 10th grade in September and he would still be eligible for 14-and-under tournaments then.

Don't get me wrong though. I am fully with you guys in your fight and it's very unfair for kids that are legit. Just might want to be cautious if you are going to name names. Good luck.

I suppose it is reasonable, though politically incorrect, to think that a kid from rural Haryana as a potential age cheat. Growing up, I used to play basketball at district/state levels and had the experience of playing against kids with similar background who were clearly 2-3 years older than claimed.

gbelday wrote:

hate.age.fraud wrote:This guy is a well-known example: http://www.indiatimes.com/sports/meet-1 ... 71397.html

He is in 10th grade but playing Under-14!

Technically, this is possible. A player can play 14-and-under until their 15th birthday. My son, for example, turns 15 in November and he is in 9th grade now. He is going to be in 10th grade in September and he would still be eligible for 14-and-under tournaments then.

Don't get me wrong though. I am fully with you guys in your fight and it's very unfair for kids that are legit. Just might want to be cautious if you are going to name names. Good luck.

The birth year matters. For example, if you are born in 2002 or before, you can't play U-14 this year. Your point in general is good, but this is not rock-solid evidence. Just correlating what we know about this guy with some public information. For most others, we can't even find such public sources that talk about grade, etc. This is where journalists can help by digging a bit.

Aren't the rules same all over the world? 2002 born kids can play U14 USTA tournaments (until the month before their birth month). So, according to the USTA rules, someone who is Nov 2002 born can play U14 until Oct 2002.

In any case, keep the fight on! It's very important that these cheaters are exposed. As Varma and Sameer mentioned above, Kamesh is great! You could also maybe reach out to Sunil Yajaman and get his advice! Good luck.

hate.age.fraud wrote:...For most others, we can't even find such public sources that talk about grade, etc.

What do you mean by that? These kids don't talk about what grade they are in and which School they go to? Even though you are competing at various tournaments, isn't it common that you mingle with other kids a little bit and exchange basic information like this? Just curious, that's all.

- Varma

This is not a new phenomenon , and is around for a long long tine , even in my Junior days there were players in the U18 category who were clearly men and they got away with it with impunity.Even right now I have heard atleast 2 names who are forever young.

What they should do is something which the ACC ( Asian Cricket Council) regularly does before each Junior tournament ,
Whenever my son went on an overseas tour the ACC designated Medical personals come down and carry out Bone Density Test and on each of these tours at least 3 to 4 Bearded Pakis were thrown out . The Doctor is camped in the city for a week ,carries out the necessary test and evaluation and after a week the results are known

And for these Bone Density test which were been carried out there was an obvious Tennis Connection , On atleast 2 occasion the medical personals was Dr Vince Paes , So if the ACC can have it for their Juniors Programme , why not the AITA.